Rabin

The violinist had achieved spectacular feats of virtuosity as a child, but as a young adult he had been shaken by a series of personal and professional difficulties, and now he was dependent upon a powerful sedative that helped him to cope with his latest crisis–the fear of falling off the front of the stage.

During his years as a child prodigy, Michael Rabin had said more than once that nervousness was never a problem for him, but by the time he was in his mid-twenties, he had begun taking “the little yellow pills” to quell the anxiety he had begun to feel before each concert. Only gradually did it become apparent that the pills were addictive and that their withdrawal symptoms included a loss of coordination.

And larger and larger doses were necessary to achieve the same calming effect.

Rabin was also taking a second prescription drug, a diet tablet with side effects that included the very things Rabin was trying to overcome with the sedative–nervousness, dizziness, and insomnia.

In 1962 he pulled himself together to give a major performance–the first concert in Philharmonic Hall, later called Avery Fisher Hall, in New York’s newly-built Lincoln Center. He played the Brahms Sonata in D minor, Bach’s unaccompanied Partita in D minor, and a sonata by the late American composer Robert Kurka.

New York Herald Tribune, critic Harold Eyer wrote Rabin off as an overgrown prodigy who had let his intonation and technique go sloppy.

At the urging of friends, Rabin consulted a series of general practitioners who prescribed another smorgasbord of sedatives and dietetics, a course that led to concert cancellations, hospitalizations, and an erratic withdrawal from the drugs. During the next several years, Rabin gradually made his way back to the concert stage.

But twilight came early in the troubled life of Michael Rabin, and, at the age of thirty-five, he died alone in his apartment, apparently as the result of a fall.